Snow is falling
by vespertine dreams
Summary: Christmas fic. When the snow starts falling, the team go out to play. Slash- Danny/Connor. Reviews welcome.


Snow is falling

There was something not quite right, Lester thought, frowning. Things were too quiet. Getting up from his desk and going out onto the balcony and his suspicions were confirmed. The ARC was practically deserted; an hour ago, the last time he had looked out, the geeks had all been congregated around the anomaly detector, with Becker and Danny nearby. They had been making a damned racket, playing with some stupid toy reindeer that Abby had brought in and when they clapped at it, it sang 'Jingle Bells'. He really hated that thing but since it was Christmas eve he had allowed it. Just as he had allowed them to put up decorations in their offices. Not in the detector room- that had been his line in the sand. No decorations in the detector room. However, now they were gone and the reindeer sat forlornly on the end of the desk.

He was tempted to just sit back and enjoy the peace and quiet, but he tended to get suspicious when he didn't know where they all were.

Lester called for his secretary, intending to send her off to investigate.

----------

_(Thirty minutes earlier)_

"Hey, Connor, look out of the window."

Connor stopped fiddling with the wires under the anomaly detector and slid out from underneath the desk, allowing Danny to pull him to his feet.

"Why?"

"Just look," Abby told him.

Connor went across to the window, looked out, and a huge smile lit his face. In the four hours since he'd arrived in the ARC, it had apparently been snowing pretty heavily. The ground was covered in a brilliant white layer, the tree branches sagging under the weight and it was still fluttering down.

This was brilliant! It might put a stop to his plans to go to his mum's house tomorrow for Christmas day but it was a white Christmas. Hurrying across the detector room, he went straight past the group near the detector and came back a few moments later with his jacket and gloves in hand.

"Where are you going?" Danny enquired.

Connor put his jacket on and zipped it up. "Outside. Oh, come on, just for a while," he cajoled. "It's not like we've actually got anything to do here. Please, Danny."

Danny smiled. He was a push-over when it came to Connor- it was those begging puppy-dog eyes that did it- and he knew it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Connor spent most nights in his bed. He just liked making the younger man happy.

"Let me get my coat."

Connor waited impatiently, bouncing on the balls of his feet as Danny, as well as the rest of the team, went off to get jackets and gloves and scarves. Danny was the first to return and Connor grabbed his hand and set off, towing his boyfriend along. Usually he would not have been quiet so forward whilst they were at work but he was just too excited. He couldn't help it; snow made him act like an over excited kid on a sugar high.

"I'll bet you were the kind of kid that used to go out in the garden at the crack of dawn if it had snowed just so you could be the first to make footprints around it, weren't you?" Danny teased.

Connor nodded his head. "Of course. It's not the same if it's got someone else's footprints in it already."

He looked across to the lawn that separated the car park from the building and saw pristine, unsullied white snow. Perfect. He let go of Danny's hand and began to pace his way around the grass, leaving a perfect set of boot prints behind him. When he reached the end of the loop, back to where he started from, he looked back at his handiwork.

"Happy now?"

Turning to Danny, he saw that the others had made it outside and were coming over to join them.

"Now I want to make a snowman," he announced. "Don't look at me like that; it's fun."

"Whatever you say, Conn," Danny laughed, unable to resist the urge to give him a hug.

Connor was adorable when he got like this, and his excitement was infectious. Before long, everyone was helping to build the biggest snowman they could, positioning him to stand guard by the main door to the ARC. Connor added the finishing touches- nose, eyes, mouth, scarf- and turned back to Danny.

"See? I told you this was fun."

Danny had to agree; he couldn't remember the last time he had just done something completely pointless such as building snowmen. Uncaring what the others would think- he could blame it on the fact it was Christmas and therefore the usual rules didn't apply- he fisted his hand in the front of Connor's jacket and pulled him closer. However, no sooner had his lips met Connor's than something freezing cold and solid hit him square in the back.

He turned to see Becker with another snowball formed, tossing it casually from one hand to the other with a wicked grin on his face. Behind him, Dev and Mark, two more of his soldiers, were armed with the same.

"Don't you dare," he warned, though he was smiling as he said it.

The next snowball hit the wall just above their heads, exploding on impact and showering them with tiny ice crystals.

Danny moved behind Connor enough that his hands were shielded from view and began to scrape some of the snow off the snowman they'd just built. Once he was ready, he whispered in Connor's ear,

"Duck."

The second Connor was down, he launched the icy missile, scoring a direct hit to Becker's chest. Connor stood back up, grinning as he surveyed the strike and stuck his tongue out at Becker.

Dev stepped forward with another snowball, this time aiming for Abby and Sarah. They squealed and dived for cover and it missed them by millimetres.

"This is war!" Danny informed the soldiers.

The three smiled and rearmed themselves. Whilst they did that, Danny ran for what little cover he could find, that being the line of trees that ran along the edge of the car park. It wasn't perfect but it would suffice. He saw Sarah peer out from her hiding place as they passed by but a yelp made him look back to Connor just in time to see a snowball hit him on the backside. Connor had been following but now he stopped, looking back to see Mark's taunting grin.

"Connor, what are you doing?"

"Fighting back." Connor stooped to scrape up some snow and threw it back at Mark. "If we run away and let them win, we'll never hear the end of it."

"Good point."

Danny came back to join him, ducking as a snowball whizzed past his right ear. The women had also decided to join the battle and were launching an attack from a second front, dividing the soldiers' attentions.

When one of the lab staff stepped out of the front doors for a smoke five minutes later, she found herself in the middle of a battle. Snowballs were flying about, people laughing and taunting each other, and she hastily retreated, slamming the doors behind her.

Connor saw Abby emerge from her hiding place and frowned. How had she managed to escape getting hit? There wasn't a single speck of snow on her, he thought, turning to lob the snow in his hand in her direction. Since she wasn't expecting it, she didn't duck, instead turning to glare at Connor. Unfortunately, she was a much better shot than he was and when she teamed up with Sarah for revenge, he didn't stand a chance.

Beside him, just out of firing line, Danny was laughing at him as he shook the ice out of his hair.

"Thanks for all your help," he grumbled, but Danny could see that he wasn't annoyed. Connor's hair was wet, snow stuck to his jacket and his were cheeks red from the cold. He still had a huge grin on his face and Danny smiled back. The young man came forward to give him a hug…

… seconds before stuffing a handful of freezing snow down Danny's neck.

"Connor!"

Connor set off at a sprint with Danny in pursuit, laughing at Danny's promises of retribution. He ducked when he saw a well aimed snowball coming in his direction. It barely missed him, instead arcing across the car park where it collided with another object.

A car alarm sounded and everyone stopped in mid throw. Connor's eyes widened at the snowball still half stuck to the windscreen.

"That's Lester's car," he said to Danny, who then turned to yell to the others.

"Run!"

------

End.


End file.
